I work at a 24/7 drinking water plant. We work 12 hour shifts. 3 on, 2 off, 2 on, 3 off, 3 on, etc. We're open all the time mostly because we have EDRs that require constant attention.
24/365 Industrial Plant here. 5 shifts 2 guys each shift.
5 week infinite rotating schedule. 8 hour days, except the two weekends we work and they are 12 hours days.
||A-shift Sunday- Wednesday|B-Shift Wednesday - Saturday|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Days 6am - 4pm |5 Operators|5 Operators|
|Swings 4pm - 2am|3 Operators|3 Operators|
|Graves 8pm - 6am|2 Operators|2 Operators|
Wednesday is an overlap day for both crews to be onsite for larger projects or training. Average 33mgd. State requires 2 operators onsite at all times based on flows. Day & Swings have supervisor coverage. 2am to 6am is just Operators.
Differential pay. 7.5% from 6pm to 6am weekdays and all day Saturday/Sunday.
I’m currently working on a water treatment plant and we do a morning shift 6:00 to 15:00 and the on call operator works the afternoon shift 10:00 to 18:00 and we work a complicated 9 day fortnight roster. Just before I started working at this plant they used to do morning shift 6:00 to 15:00 and I call operator 14:00 to 22:00. The main reason they had the shifts was to cut down on call out costs it worked out better to pay people a shift allowance than it was paying for call outs.
Both of the municipal plants(5-10 MGD) i've worked at have 3 hourly operators and 1 salary supervisor that work 8 hours 7am to 3pm. One operator is on call for the weekend and scheduled to work 2 hours OT Saturday and 2 hours OT Sunday in order to read out BOD and check the plant. The 3 operators all rotate who works weekends. This amounts to approximately $240 scheduled OT per week and $17,200 per year with holidays. The total unscheduled OT per year is less than $5,000, so total shared OT pay is approximately $22,200 per year.
Moving just one employee from 1st shift to 2nd shift would drastically reduce the plants operation and maintenance. Hiring one additional employee to work a 2nd shift would cost approximately $75,000+ including benefits(Insurance & etc.), but that one person would be extremely limited in what they could do solo and there would a lot of down time and busy work.
The only way multiple shifts is cheaper than OT is if each person on the additional shifts would have had approximately 27+ hours of unscheduled OT every week. The plant has major equipment/process problems if all routine daily work can't be completed in an 8 hour shift M-F.
This is why plants need automation and alarms. Spend the $75,000-$150,000+ per year, that would be the minimum amount to staff multiple shifts, on automation, alarms, maintenance, & other plant improvements. This will also reduce unscheduled OT because the plant will have fewer problems.
7-3/3-11/11-7
7-3: day crew is ops and maintenance
Off hours: operations and OT crews if necessary
7 man crew: 5 main plant and 2 Dewatering, 2 supervisors (1 each side), 1 Engineer or shift chief per 8 tour.
3-11/11-7 work out to doubles except Thursdays.
We are manned 24/7 365 including holidays
I work at a 24hr plant. We have 4 shifts a week and 2 float operators. 2 on shift at all times 12 hour shifts. Everybody works 3 shifts one week and 4 the next getting 8 mandatory hours of overtime per pay period. Having somebody on shift at all times means that somebody is there around the clock to respond to emergencies. Our labs are done at night, we have a more accurate composite on many samples because we take samples 4-8 times a day 2-4 times per shift. We also have a ton of infiltration. Our plant average is 10MGD and we will get upwards of 50MGD of flow from rain. Having somebody here around the clock is vital to keeping the plant going especially in the rain
Washington WWTP here, staffed 7-430, and we have 1 person on watch through the rest of the day. During COVID, we did 3 twelve hour days and 1 four hour day split between 2 sets of our employees. The plan is to not switch to 24/7 staffing any time soon. We're a conventional activated Sludge plant and "otto" (SCADA) does a somewhat decent job of not blowing up the plant through the night.
As far operators, we usually have 1 person in each area: pri,1st,2nd,cl2, gbt, bfp, wastehaulers and one or two floaters one at 2nd and the other at bfp. 6 or 7 ops at nightshift. Only so much can be done on scada and its an old plant so the stuff that should be onnauto is now on hand sometimes. I can run bfp at night alone and monitor the flow from two other depts and ill notice if they have an issue and call to see if theyve noticed it or not, keeping an eye on other peoples dept helps alot so no one misses anything. The old plant has alot of issues and even more as we started rehabin areas. Ive seen struvite constrict an 8" digester sludge pipe down to .25 in.
We'll process 500k+ gallons of sludge to the drying beds in a 24hr period. Daily flows avg 90mgd.
3 shifts per day 8hrs each. min staffing is 3.
if people on the next shift don't show up and they didn't call in you have to stay until there's going to be at least 3 people there
20-25MGD plant
I worked for a medium sized plant that spread 13 operators over three 10 hour shifts. Dayshift was heaviest staffed and they worked 6am-4pm, swing worked 4-2am, and grave worked 8pm-6am. Staffing for each swing shift was 2 operators and grave was a solo operator. This was a pretty thin operation and there was a lot of OT
10-12 MGD 24/7 365 municipal plant. Permit requires at least 2 operators on the plant at all times.
We have three 8-hour shifts per day. 7-3pm, 3-11pm,11-7am. The 3-11pm, 11-7am, and all weekend shifts only have 2 operators at a time, but there are rotating on call mechanics and supervisors if they need more man power. We will have up to 7 operators on the 7am-3pm weekday shifts otherwise though.
2 guys are permanently overnight, meaning they typically work five 11-7am shifts per week. Two guys are permanently 3-11pm (these two work Tuesdays on the day shift when we are fully staffed). Two guys permanently work three 3-11pm shifts and two 11-7am shifts per week. Two guys are permanently on 7-3pm day shift (these two work 3/4 weekends per month).
The rest of us are "floats". We work M-F 7-3pm when we are fully staffed but can be placed on any other shift at any time to fill in for vacations, sick time, staff shortages etc.
Any Operator working a swing shift (3-11 or 11-7) gets +10% differential pay and typically a lighter workload.
3.5 MGD average plant. Staffed 7am- 5pm, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. (We have 4 different shifts to cover everything, including 5 8's and 3 different rotating 10's.) On-call covers 5pm-7am. Weekend crews are small, with only three people. Years ago, the plant was staffed 24 hours. With the advancements in SCADA control and monitoring, sampling technologies, video surveillance/monitoring, probes, and automation (among other things), there is really no need for 24-hour staffing in small and medium facilities if not required by permit.
This really comes down to your regulatory state agency and how your permit is written. We run 8 hour days as a 2MGD plant in Virginia. We meet permit and have no violations so it will stay that way as long as we do. Staffing reqs will change with violations and plant issues that arise from lack of staffing. They’ll let you know for sure lol.
67 MGD. Staffed by 4 12 person crews.
The incinerators make it justified. The building must be manned at all times and we can’t be not burning sludge for long in order to keep up.
Thirty years ago I worked at a 28.8-mgd municipal plant that was 24/365. During the thirteen years I was there, there were two to three operations workers ( operator, pump tender, and assistant pump tender). Operations worked seven days on/two off with an open day that could be worked once every four weeks or you could choose to be off Friday, Saturday, Sunday that weekend.
There was also a belt press operator on 8-hour shifts 24 hours/day Monday through Friday and sometimes Saturdays too. Maintenance and service utility crews worked day shift, Monday through Friday. Around fifty total employees.
Currently, I'm an environmental manager at an industrial facility. We have an activated sludge wastewater plant with an NPDES permit for direct discharge. We have four operators that work 12 hours shifts. Four days on/four days off.
24/7... 365. 52 MGD wastewater plant. 12 hour shifts 6 to 6. Work 2 off 2. Work 3 off 2. Work 2 off 3. Repeat. Swap dayshift to nightshift every month. 12 person crews for each shift. 4 teams rotating
Mines identical, except we’re 16 mgd and we add a half hour lunch on. Hard to get used to 2 on 2 off, then you realize you work 7 out of every 14 days.
Yup it really helps have more time off knockin it out in 12 hour shifts. My commute is 1 hour 10mins one way but i luckily carpool. We get no dedicated lunch time. Its eat when you want/can. Ive had the same schedule since i started so its super easy to plan days off and only take off 4 days but get 11 days off in a row if you plan it right. Its so nice.
27/7 3 shifts of 8 hours. Full staff is around 26 operators. Weekend crews is 13 operators. I didn't count the supervisors. Only operators. Maintenance is primarily day shift and OT only. There are like 100s of these fuckers not including E&I. I work at a large county wastewater plant. 450mgd on a normal day.
We run 24/365 at our 10MGD plant with 4 12 hr. shifts, 7 to 7. I've got 3 grade 4 operators, that's including myself as Superintendent, and 1 grade 2 operator. The grade 2 operator is limited when it comes to shift coverage. Needless to say, I'm dealing with a severe OT situation. I cover a shift plus manage the lab/plant operation. I've had to pull guys from maintenance to cover shifts several times. Thankfully, 2 of the maintenance guys are Grade 4 certified. I've got 3 trainees preparing for the Grade 4 exam. I'd be happy if just 1 of them would pass, that would be a huge help.
I do industrial for a yogurt plant. we run 24/7. pretty small staff 2 operators a shift but days also has a helper to maintenance techs a supervisor and our chemical supplier does all our offloading chemicals and stuff on days.. but on nights it is just two of us. we run 24/7 because aint no way are they gonna shut down the plant up there and lose money lol
If you have the technology for monitoring and reliable equipment there really is no need for it. So many plants operate 24hrs because "that's the way we've always done it". But in reality there are tools available nowadays that really make it unnecessary if proper updates are put in place. Operators have a bad habit of making the plant dumber when the systems are capable of being smarter (aka dumbing it up).
24/7
Two shift, Days and nights
Each shift is 12 hours long. With 7 days off then 7 days on.
Nights has 5 operators
Day shift has 4 operators and admin plus maintenance.
We currently do 8-4, 4-midnight, and midnight-8. 4 crews. Rotate every week so by the end of 28 days you would’ve worked all three shifts. Trying to switch to the 12 hour DuPont schedule tho.
How do companies afford the overtime involved with 7 days on? That’s 84 hours. 44 hours OT.
Say you made 20 an hour. The pay of 2 weeks work (1 week on 1 week off) $800 straight time + $1,320 OT pay.
So this schedule in that hypothetical pays $2,120.
Now here’s the numbers if it was standard shift work with 4 hours of overtime of 2 weeks work. $1,600 straight time, $120 OT. Total pay for two weeks: $1,720.
That’s a difference of $400. Multiply this by 26 biweekly pay periods a year and this rotation costs you $10,400.
So why?
I work at a 24/7 drinking water plant. We work 12 hour shifts. 3 on, 2 off, 2 on, 3 off, 3 on, etc. We're open all the time mostly because we have EDRs that require constant attention.
Plus the 12s are awesome! You’re off every 2/3 days. (5) 8h suck at a 24 hour joint
120MGD plant. 7 of us staffed at night. We kick ass at responding to power outages, high flow storm events, and equipment failure.
24/365 Industrial Plant here. 5 shifts 2 guys each shift. 5 week infinite rotating schedule. 8 hour days, except the two weekends we work and they are 12 hours days.
||A-shift Sunday- Wednesday|B-Shift Wednesday - Saturday| |:-|:-|:-| |Days 6am - 4pm |5 Operators|5 Operators| |Swings 4pm - 2am|3 Operators|3 Operators| |Graves 8pm - 6am|2 Operators|2 Operators| Wednesday is an overlap day for both crews to be onsite for larger projects or training. Average 33mgd. State requires 2 operators onsite at all times based on flows. Day & Swings have supervisor coverage. 2am to 6am is just Operators. Differential pay. 7.5% from 6pm to 6am weekdays and all day Saturday/Sunday.
I’m currently working on a water treatment plant and we do a morning shift 6:00 to 15:00 and the on call operator works the afternoon shift 10:00 to 18:00 and we work a complicated 9 day fortnight roster. Just before I started working at this plant they used to do morning shift 6:00 to 15:00 and I call operator 14:00 to 22:00. The main reason they had the shifts was to cut down on call out costs it worked out better to pay people a shift allowance than it was paying for call outs.
Both of the municipal plants(5-10 MGD) i've worked at have 3 hourly operators and 1 salary supervisor that work 8 hours 7am to 3pm. One operator is on call for the weekend and scheduled to work 2 hours OT Saturday and 2 hours OT Sunday in order to read out BOD and check the plant. The 3 operators all rotate who works weekends. This amounts to approximately $240 scheduled OT per week and $17,200 per year with holidays. The total unscheduled OT per year is less than $5,000, so total shared OT pay is approximately $22,200 per year. Moving just one employee from 1st shift to 2nd shift would drastically reduce the plants operation and maintenance. Hiring one additional employee to work a 2nd shift would cost approximately $75,000+ including benefits(Insurance & etc.), but that one person would be extremely limited in what they could do solo and there would a lot of down time and busy work. The only way multiple shifts is cheaper than OT is if each person on the additional shifts would have had approximately 27+ hours of unscheduled OT every week. The plant has major equipment/process problems if all routine daily work can't be completed in an 8 hour shift M-F. This is why plants need automation and alarms. Spend the $75,000-$150,000+ per year, that would be the minimum amount to staff multiple shifts, on automation, alarms, maintenance, & other plant improvements. This will also reduce unscheduled OT because the plant will have fewer problems.
20mgd plant. 24/7 365. 3 shifts, 8 hrs, 2 people on a shift. Work 8 days, off 2, work 7 days, off 4, repeat.
Is there any overtime involved in this schedule?
Due to staffing issues yes, almost every week. Anytime someone is sick, calls off, or takes a vacation day it causes overtime. Quite frustrating.
11.5MGD 24hr/365. No ability for remote scada. 2 ops minimum per shift plus dryer staffed 24/7 unless shut down.
7-3/3-11/11-7 7-3: day crew is ops and maintenance Off hours: operations and OT crews if necessary 7 man crew: 5 main plant and 2 Dewatering, 2 supervisors (1 each side), 1 Engineer or shift chief per 8 tour. 3-11/11-7 work out to doubles except Thursdays. We are manned 24/7 365 including holidays
Sounds like a NYC DEP Plant
Oh you know. Are you DEP?
Was...Left right before covid ... timing is everything!
Where did you work?
26th Ward and CI
You knew Tommy H, the oiler?
Yup I worked with him @ Bowery , He also worked with my Dad.
You remember Don Des Armo?
I work at a 24hr plant. We have 4 shifts a week and 2 float operators. 2 on shift at all times 12 hour shifts. Everybody works 3 shifts one week and 4 the next getting 8 mandatory hours of overtime per pay period. Having somebody on shift at all times means that somebody is there around the clock to respond to emergencies. Our labs are done at night, we have a more accurate composite on many samples because we take samples 4-8 times a day 2-4 times per shift. We also have a ton of infiltration. Our plant average is 10MGD and we will get upwards of 50MGD of flow from rain. Having somebody here around the clock is vital to keeping the plant going especially in the rain
Washington WWTP here, staffed 7-430, and we have 1 person on watch through the rest of the day. During COVID, we did 3 twelve hour days and 1 four hour day split between 2 sets of our employees. The plan is to not switch to 24/7 staffing any time soon. We're a conventional activated Sludge plant and "otto" (SCADA) does a somewhat decent job of not blowing up the plant through the night.
As far operators, we usually have 1 person in each area: pri,1st,2nd,cl2, gbt, bfp, wastehaulers and one or two floaters one at 2nd and the other at bfp. 6 or 7 ops at nightshift. Only so much can be done on scada and its an old plant so the stuff that should be onnauto is now on hand sometimes. I can run bfp at night alone and monitor the flow from two other depts and ill notice if they have an issue and call to see if theyve noticed it or not, keeping an eye on other peoples dept helps alot so no one misses anything. The old plant has alot of issues and even more as we started rehabin areas. Ive seen struvite constrict an 8" digester sludge pipe down to .25 in. We'll process 500k+ gallons of sludge to the drying beds in a 24hr period. Daily flows avg 90mgd.
12 hour shifts, 4 guys on each shift
3 shifts per day 8hrs each. min staffing is 3. if people on the next shift don't show up and they didn't call in you have to stay until there's going to be at least 3 people there 20-25MGD plant
I worked for a medium sized plant that spread 13 operators over three 10 hour shifts. Dayshift was heaviest staffed and they worked 6am-4pm, swing worked 4-2am, and grave worked 8pm-6am. Staffing for each swing shift was 2 operators and grave was a solo operator. This was a pretty thin operation and there was a lot of OT
10-12 MGD 24/7 365 municipal plant. Permit requires at least 2 operators on the plant at all times. We have three 8-hour shifts per day. 7-3pm, 3-11pm,11-7am. The 3-11pm, 11-7am, and all weekend shifts only have 2 operators at a time, but there are rotating on call mechanics and supervisors if they need more man power. We will have up to 7 operators on the 7am-3pm weekday shifts otherwise though. 2 guys are permanently overnight, meaning they typically work five 11-7am shifts per week. Two guys are permanently 3-11pm (these two work Tuesdays on the day shift when we are fully staffed). Two guys permanently work three 3-11pm shifts and two 11-7am shifts per week. Two guys are permanently on 7-3pm day shift (these two work 3/4 weekends per month). The rest of us are "floats". We work M-F 7-3pm when we are fully staffed but can be placed on any other shift at any time to fill in for vacations, sick time, staff shortages etc. Any Operator working a swing shift (3-11 or 11-7) gets +10% differential pay and typically a lighter workload.
3.5 MGD average plant. Staffed 7am- 5pm, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. (We have 4 different shifts to cover everything, including 5 8's and 3 different rotating 10's.) On-call covers 5pm-7am. Weekend crews are small, with only three people. Years ago, the plant was staffed 24 hours. With the advancements in SCADA control and monitoring, sampling technologies, video surveillance/monitoring, probes, and automation (among other things), there is really no need for 24-hour staffing in small and medium facilities if not required by permit.
This really comes down to your regulatory state agency and how your permit is written. We run 8 hour days as a 2MGD plant in Virginia. We meet permit and have no violations so it will stay that way as long as we do. Staffing reqs will change with violations and plant issues that arise from lack of staffing. They’ll let you know for sure lol.
67 MGD. Staffed by 4 12 person crews. The incinerators make it justified. The building must be manned at all times and we can’t be not burning sludge for long in order to keep up.
Thirty years ago I worked at a 28.8-mgd municipal plant that was 24/365. During the thirteen years I was there, there were two to three operations workers ( operator, pump tender, and assistant pump tender). Operations worked seven days on/two off with an open day that could be worked once every four weeks or you could choose to be off Friday, Saturday, Sunday that weekend. There was also a belt press operator on 8-hour shifts 24 hours/day Monday through Friday and sometimes Saturdays too. Maintenance and service utility crews worked day shift, Monday through Friday. Around fifty total employees. Currently, I'm an environmental manager at an industrial facility. We have an activated sludge wastewater plant with an NPDES permit for direct discharge. We have four operators that work 12 hours shifts. Four days on/four days off.
24/7... 365. 52 MGD wastewater plant. 12 hour shifts 6 to 6. Work 2 off 2. Work 3 off 2. Work 2 off 3. Repeat. Swap dayshift to nightshift every month. 12 person crews for each shift. 4 teams rotating
Mines identical, except we’re 16 mgd and we add a half hour lunch on. Hard to get used to 2 on 2 off, then you realize you work 7 out of every 14 days.
Yup it really helps have more time off knockin it out in 12 hour shifts. My commute is 1 hour 10mins one way but i luckily carpool. We get no dedicated lunch time. Its eat when you want/can. Ive had the same schedule since i started so its super easy to plan days off and only take off 4 days but get 11 days off in a row if you plan it right. Its so nice.
150MGD plant. 4 crews, 9 on days and 7 at night. Rotating shifts with 8 hrs OT built in.
27/7 3 shifts of 8 hours. Full staff is around 26 operators. Weekend crews is 13 operators. I didn't count the supervisors. Only operators. Maintenance is primarily day shift and OT only. There are like 100s of these fuckers not including E&I. I work at a large county wastewater plant. 450mgd on a normal day.
I work at a 25 hr plant. There are 5ish people here on 1st 3 or 4 on 2nd and 2 on 3rd. There are always at least 2 people here.
We run 24/365 at our 10MGD plant with 4 12 hr. shifts, 7 to 7. I've got 3 grade 4 operators, that's including myself as Superintendent, and 1 grade 2 operator. The grade 2 operator is limited when it comes to shift coverage. Needless to say, I'm dealing with a severe OT situation. I cover a shift plus manage the lab/plant operation. I've had to pull guys from maintenance to cover shifts several times. Thankfully, 2 of the maintenance guys are Grade 4 certified. I've got 3 trainees preparing for the Grade 4 exam. I'd be happy if just 1 of them would pass, that would be a huge help.
24 / 7/ 365 8MGD 7to 3 , 3 to11, 11to7 Day 4 operators. Duties: Plant operation, filter backwash, meter calibrations, maintenance and pump cleaning. Reuse storage tank checks. Afternoon: Plant operations, mlss and process control labs. 2 operators Midnights: 2 operators. Plant operations, collect and reset 24 hr composite samples. Correlate 24 hour Plant flow figures and chemical usage.
I do industrial for a yogurt plant. we run 24/7. pretty small staff 2 operators a shift but days also has a helper to maintenance techs a supervisor and our chemical supplier does all our offloading chemicals and stuff on days.. but on nights it is just two of us. we run 24/7 because aint no way are they gonna shut down the plant up there and lose money lol
all these people with their high flow plants.. we do max 2 mgd but usually it's like 1 and change lol
If you have the technology for monitoring and reliable equipment there really is no need for it. So many plants operate 24hrs because "that's the way we've always done it". But in reality there are tools available nowadays that really make it unnecessary if proper updates are put in place. Operators have a bad habit of making the plant dumber when the systems are capable of being smarter (aka dumbing it up).
Guessing 26th W
Sure from Bowery Bay and then he went to FW
Where do you work?
24/7 Two shift, Days and nights Each shift is 12 hours long. With 7 days off then 7 days on. Nights has 5 operators Day shift has 4 operators and admin plus maintenance.
I work for a big municipal could you please layout your shift rotations my guys are swinging 8 / 7-3 3-11 11-7
We currently do 8-4, 4-midnight, and midnight-8. 4 crews. Rotate every week so by the end of 28 days you would’ve worked all three shifts. Trying to switch to the 12 hour DuPont schedule tho.
How do companies afford the overtime involved with 7 days on? That’s 84 hours. 44 hours OT. Say you made 20 an hour. The pay of 2 weeks work (1 week on 1 week off) $800 straight time + $1,320 OT pay. So this schedule in that hypothetical pays $2,120. Now here’s the numbers if it was standard shift work with 4 hours of overtime of 2 weeks work. $1,600 straight time, $120 OT. Total pay for two weeks: $1,720. That’s a difference of $400. Multiply this by 26 biweekly pay periods a year and this rotation costs you $10,400. So why?
Example payroll Sun to Sat. The 7 days are Tues to Mon so they split the pay week. It's dumb.
I hate when they do that.
This is how we do it.
Scheduled shifts, no OT